Twitter Adds Custom Timelines, Enhances Mobile Ad Targeting

On the heels of its initial public offering, Twitter has released new features that give more flexibility to publishers and more control to advertisers. First, custom timelines allow publishers to create and share timelines related to the topic of their choosing. And for advertisers, Twitter just got savvier in mobile by adding device type and wifi connectivity to its targeting.

Custom Timelines

Custom timelines allow publishers to create and share Twitter timelines with their own pages around a topic users care about. From Twitter:

Share the best Tweets about a topic you care about, or an event – planned or unplanned – that’s happening right now. Whether you want to collect the best Tweets about a TV show or help people find the latest information about fast-moving real-time situations, custom timelines let you give everyone a place to follow along.

The custom timelines API beta allows publishers to create timelines based on the logic they choose. So the rules for what tweets show in the custom timeline are up to the creator.

Custom timelines can be created and managed from TweetDeck, and embedded and shared on the web.

Enhanced Mobile Targeting

Prior to this week’s announcement on enhanced mobile features, advertisers had the ability to target mobile users by operating system; but now, mobile targeting is more granular with the ability to segment audiences on Android and iOS by operating system version, device type and WiFi connectivity.

Twitter said there are many benefits to this, including:

Mobile app marketers can now reach users who have compatible OS versions, ideal device types for app usage with high connectivity to prompt a new download or re-engagement through an app card.

Telco marketers can now promote loyalty and rewards to users on their specific devices, or reach new prospects on older devices.

All marketers can focus their campaigns on users with device models that are indicative of demographics which align with their campaign goals.

Advertisers can track the new segmentation in their Twitter analytics.

Related reading

GroupM predicts that global ad spend will top $547 billion next year, up from $524 billion this year. While television will still capture the biggest share of that 12-figure pie (41%), digital's share will grow from 31% to 33%.